Roughly one-third of the global food supply and 75% of all agricultural crops, including many of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds we eat every day, depend on pollination by bees, birds, and other wildlife.¹

Native pollinators are essential to our nation’s agricultural systems. Protecting the health of bees and other pollinators is necessary to ensure the long-term viability of farming across the country.

In 2012, a study demonstrated that a neonicotinoid pesticide called thiamethoxam can cause high mortality in honeybees by compromising their ability to navigate back to the hive.²

In 2014, a Harvard School of Public Health study confirmed that low doses of a neonicotinoid pesticide called imidacloprid contributed to colony collapse disorder in bees.³

In 2015, a study showed that the levels of neonicotinoid pesticides currently used in agriculture causes both impairment of bees’ brain cells and poor performance by the colony.⁴

The list of studies goes on and on. In study after study three neonicotinoid pesticides -- clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam -- have proven to be very dangerous not just to bees, birds, and endangered wildlife. These pesticides even put the long-term future of farming at risk.⁵

Neonicotinoid pesticides are a relatively new class of synthetic insecticides introduced in the 1990s that were rapidly adopted by the agricultural industry. They are now the most widely applied class of pesticide in the world.

Instead of applying science-based integrated pest management principles to only use pesticides when pests are actually present at damaging levels, and after other control methods have failed, the agricultural industry recklessly precoats almost every seed with neonicotinoid pesticides before even being planted.

These pesticides are so overused that 75% of global honey supply samples contained detectable levels of neonicotinoid pesticides adversely affecting between 67 to 79% percent of all threatened and endangered species of wildlife worldwide.⁶

Congress can fix this.

At a minimum, Congress can restrict usage by developing rules needed to address when pest threats justify the use of such seeds, regulate the toxicity levels of the pesticides infused in the seeds, and require the availability of seeds without pesticide to all farmers. Without these reforms, Congress could ban these pesticides completely.

Add your name in support:

TELL CONGRESS:
Protect bees, birds and other endangered species, while also protecting the long-term viability of farming nationwide by restricting the use of neonicotinoid pesticides now!

¹ Pollinators vital to our food supply under threat, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Report
² Use of common pesticide linked to bee colony collapse, Harvard Study 2012
³ Study strengthens link between neonicotinoids and collapse of honey bee colonies, Harvard Study 2014
⁴ Bee brains and colony health jeopardized by pesticide exposure, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Dundee University Report
⁵ The environmental risks of neonicotinoid pesticides: a review of the evidence post 2013, Michigan State University and University of Sussex Joint Report
⁶ Nerve agents in honey, American Association for the Advancement of Science Report